. Kambwili

YOUTH and Sports Minister Chishimba Kambwili recently announced that Government had increased the allocation towards the Youth Development Fund (YDF) from K20.3 million in 2014 to K29.1 million in 2015.
What is the Youth Development Fund?
The Youth Development Fund is money released by Government through a loan scheme to youths, to empower them with the capital to engage in various business ventures of meaningful profit.
What is required is for an applicant to draw up a candid business proposal, highlighting how much they want to access and the kind of business these funds would be invested in.
Funding is granted accordingly but after a stipulated period of time, the borrower is expected to repay the money to the Government as the YDF is a revolving fund where recipients benefit concurrently.
From 2012, Government has disbursed K30.2 million to 900 youth groups countrywide despite the failure by some youths to repay the loans for one reason or the other.
Beneficiaries have been able to invest the money in sectors such as agriculture and livestock and small-scale manufacturing and most of them have begun reaping profits.
Zambia is faced with challenges of youth unemployment, thus entrepreneurship or self-employment is being encouraged as a means to create the much needed jobs for young people.
The number of fresh graduates from tertiary institutions in increasing every year and latest figures indicate that there 955,000 people in formal employment countrywide.
Hence Government introduced the YDF, a well tailored initiative for job creation as it promotes the growth of the private sector and gives young entrepreneurs capacity to thrive.
The procedure to access funding under the initiative however has not been easy and youths have been calling for the exercise to be simplified.
Indeed there is need for additional strategies to ensure equal access of the YDF so that other beneficiaries are not left out.
Government should put in place additional structures to enhance understanding of the fund among beneficiaries at grassroot level.
Some common questions maybe; who qualifies for the YDF? Is this facility only meant for the literate as the illiterate cannot come up with a business proposal?
The selection of beneficiaries for the YDF should also be decentralized to district level through cooperatives, where beneficiaries can register and present their business proposals for funding.
Registration to the cooperative may not be limited and funding could be done in categories with various grouping accessing money on different turns.
Those managing the cooperatives will have the overall task to ensure that distribution is done of the money is done equally and on merit to deserving beneficiaries.
Equally, distributing the funds through banks would be a good move specifically to ensure accountability and an orderly mode of accessing money.
There is need to mentor and offer entrepreneurship skills to youths as they are being given these funds to ensure that they venture into the right businesses.
With the help of qualified motivational institutions, this would also ensure sustainability in the various projects which the youths would be operating.
Tertiary institutions should also introduce in their curriculum deliberate sessions where students would be trained on how to manage businesses in case they do not find fulltime employment.
The move by Government to continue increasing the youth development fund annually, clearly shows commitment in empowering and improving the welfare of unemployed young people in the country.
This is why beneficiary youths must ensure that they pay back the money for other groups to benefit.
The youths must grab this opportunity with both hands and apply the funds wisely thereby contributing to the country’s national development.